One of the frustrations that we hear frequently is that it can be challenging to get approval for a Contract Management System since the company views it as a cost center, and most new systems go towards revenue.

At ContractSafe we love contracts. We know...it's kind of weird. But it's what we do! Another thing we love is Sterling Miller's blog. He takes complicated areas of the law and simplifies it into Top Ten lists. They're interesting, useful and sometimes fun! Here's his latest which is right up our alley:

Top executives and managers have long realized the importance of hiring the right person for a particular job. Recognizing this fact, author and business consultant Jim Collins once said, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technological innovation with important business applications. In essence, the technology allows a software program to analyze text and convert it into a format that a computer (or certain other machines) can read and process. Importantly, it also turns scans of documents into searchable text.

Contract management systems depend on precise, efficient systems for organizing and retrieving contracts. This often translates to a system for metadata management. But what is metadata - and what does it mean for contract management? Scroll down to find out.

“Dispute resolution,” as a broadly defined term, has existed for centuries. On a macro level, early humans once relied on brute force. As mankind evolved, countries (or kingdoms) used emissaries, diplomats, and other high-level officials to meet and negotiate a variety of topics and to avoid outright war.

From the time we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed at night, we exist in a world of contracts. We can turn on the lights and catch up with the morning news on television thanks to our contracts with the electric utility and cable company. We live in our homes, probably with a lease or mortgage contract tucked away in a drawer or safe deposit box. We drive a car to work that was leased or purchased with a written contract. And our employers have even more contracts.

Have you ever blindly accepted your take-out order at a restaurant, only to later be disappointed at home? Perhaps you ordered a sandwich and onion rings (because you’ve been craving rings for a month now), only to discover at your kitchen table that the (clearly incompetent and hateful) server gave you the sweet potato fries instead. Or perhaps you ordered the house pizza with explicit instructions to hold the black olives, only to learn that a cook (probably with impaired taste buds) put them on there anyway. In both of these instances, a quick “order compliance” audit before exiting the restaurant certainly would have been helpful!

Running a business is more complicated than ever before. Customers demand high-quality products and services for the cheapest price possible. Moreover, competition comes from everywhere, both domestically and internationally. Thus, the pressure has never been greater for enterprises to examine their business from top to bottom, to analyze every cost, and to streamline every process.